Best laptop for Photoshop

RomneyTansley

RomneyTansley

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Name
Romney
Edit My Images
Yes
Hello,

My old Dell Inspiron is due for replacement and i need advice on what to replace it with - particularly as I want to start subscribing to Photoshop CC. I'd be grateful for any thoughts on the sort of spec I should be considering to deal with the very large Raw files my camera generates these days.

I've always had these Dell machines in the past and would like to continue to do so unless there are good reasons to move elsewhere.

Many thanks,

Romney
 
It depends on how much you want to spend, and how big a screen you want. I have a 5 year old laptop with a dual core processor and 8gb RAM, and it handles editing RAW files with no problem. It may not be the fastest, but I have no slowdown on any Photoshop editing I do bar large Panoramas, which I would do on my desktop anyway. If I bulk convert a lot of RAW files from Camera Raw or Lightroom the it is not the fastest, but I don't do that very often. Would I want a newer laptop? Yes, and I have been considering a new laptop over the last week, but mainly for a reduction in size/weight from the 15.6" screen to 13.3", but getting a faster newer processor and a larger HDD at the same time.

With computers it is down to;
Processor - i5 -i7
RAM - 8-32Gb
Storage - Moving HDDs or SSDs. SSD will be a lot quicker, but high capacities may be at a premium in comparison to HDDs. You may not want or need a large capacity drive.
Screen - If the laptop is to be your main editing computer, then it should have a very good quality screen too.

My laptop is mainly used for work and when I am holiday, and any 'proper' editing is done on my desktop, you obviously have to take into account what your needs are.
 
The Dell XPS laptops (XPS 15) are nice with decent screens and powerful configs, the Precision range is very nice but expensive.
 
I use an Intel i5 Dell XPS with Win10 on an SSD drive and the software on a conventional hard drive. Get a screen calibrator like X-Rite ColorMunki too.
 
Might be worth having a look at the New Inspiron 15 Gaming.
Just ordered one for a user at work and they seem to be very good spec for the money.

Re the XPS machines.
They are nice and auper thin and light.
My own work machine is an XPS13 and I really like it, BUT, the ultra high res panel can be a pain at times.
Particularly with any older software that cannot scale properly then you get really weird layouts. Even Windows 10 doesn't do scaling as well as I think MacOS does within the OS directly.
With mine I ended up setting the laptop screen at a lower res than the recommended which solved the layout issues but obviously reduces the actual quality.
 
I have a Dell XPS15, with 512GB SSD etc and it's excellent, I have no issues with scaling using Win 10. Mine is the 2014 model with the 3200 x 1800 res screen, the screen colours etc are excellent.
I've had no issues with mine at all.
 
Thank you to everyone with their very helpful advice. Having carefully read through this and followed up various leads I finally came to a decision! I purchased a Dell Inspiron 15 7556, from Dell themselves. It appears to tick all the boxes. It's a machine for gamers, which I am not, though it seems that gamers and users of Photoshop must at the end of the day have a lot in common.

I've also after much heart-searching signed up for Photoshop CC, which isn't as far as I can see so very different from CS4 which has been my 'work-horse' for a good number of years. What's wonderful though is that this setup is so much faster than anything I've experienced before. This probably has something you do with the SSD drive I'm sure.

Thanks again to you all,
Romney
 
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